William Orman Beeman is an American scholar whose specialty is the
Middle East; he is a professor of
anthropology at the
University of Minnesota, where he is Chair of the Department of Anthropology.
He has authored many articles and fourteen books on Iranian politics, theatre, language, and culture.
About
Born in
Manhattan, Kansas. Beeman was trained as a
linguistic anthropologist
Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages and has grown over the past century to encompass mos ...
at
Wesleyan University and in 1976 he received his Ph.D from
University of Chicago.
Beeman is a professor of
anthropology at the
University of Minnesota, where he is Chair of the Department of Anthropology.
For many years he was Professor of Anthropology; Theatre, Speech and Dance; and East Asian Studies at
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
.
From 1976 until 1979, Beeman worked with the Center for Traditional Performing Arts in Tehran, and at the
Reza Shah Kabir University (now known as University of Mazandaran) in the Institute of Social and Cultural Sciences.
Beeman's book, ''The "Great Satan" vs. the "Mad Mullahs": How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other'' (2008), deals with the highly negative rhetoric and discourse between Iran and the United States over the three decades since the
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...
, and its effects on national attitudes toward the Bush administration's policy towards Iran, as well as the possibility of military conflict between the two nations. His publication is ''Iranian Performance Traditions'' which treats indigenous performance traditions of Iran. An important aspect of Beeman's work has been in the field of performance studies, particularly the study of non-Western theatrical traditions. In Iran, this includes the Iranian ritual passion drama, ''
ta'ziyeh
The Mourning of Muharram (also known as Azadari, Remembrance of Muharram or Muharram Observances) is a set of commemoration rituals observed primarily by Shia people. The commemoration falls in Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar. ...
'' and the comic improvisatory theatre tradition, ''ru-howzi.'' He has also studied traditional performance in Japan, China and South Asia. His interest in the art world is also shown in his contribution to the co-authored volume ''Object, Image and Inquiry: The Art Historian at Work''.
An admirer of the late anthropologist,
Margaret Mead, Beeman has edited seven volumes of her post-World War II papers, having written scholarly introductions for several of them, including ''The Study of Culture at a Distance'', and ''Studying Contemporary Western Society: Method and Theory''.
He is also a professional
opera singer, from 1996 until 1999 he sang
operatic bass
A bass is a type of Classical music, classical male singing Human voice, voice and has the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', a bass is typically classified as having a vocal range extendi ...
in Europe.
In 2014 he married his husband
Frank Farris
Frank A. Farris is an American mathematician. He is a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Santa Clara University. He is also an editor, author, and artist whose work concerns mathematical topics. Farris is known primarily for mathem ...
, though the two have been a couple since 1984.
Publications
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See also
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Persian theatre
Persian theater ( fa, تئاتر ایرانی) goes back to antiquity. The first initiation of theater and phenomena of acting can be traced in ceremonial theaters to glorify national heroes and legends and to humiliate the enemy, as in the class ...
References
External links
Beeman's weblog: ''Culture and International Affairs''William O. Beeman published papers op-eds and lectures
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beeman, William
21st-century American anthropologists
Cultural anthropologists
Linguists from the United States
Brown University faculty
Iranologists
American foreign policy writers
American male non-fiction writers
American male stage actors
American opera singers
University of Minnesota faculty
Wesleyan University alumni
University of Chicago alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people